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Can you see everything you need to in Kanazawa in one day, or should you plan to stay for longer? Our guide can help you determine how many days you should stay in Kanazawa. That’s right, you, not anyone else.
Kanazawa is a fairly large city with three main sightseeing areas to cover. Outside of these areas, you’ll also find big-name attractions like the Ninja Temple, the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art and the famous Kenrokuen Garden, and plenty of other small shrines and museums, and delicious food to keep you occupied.
To see all of these big sights, and a few less well-known ones that you’ll find in our Top 10 Must-Dos in Kanazawa, took me almost three days. I arrived in Kanazawa at lunchtime and spent the next two and a half days exploring as many sights as I could, albeit at a pretty leisurely pace.
Article by Helen Foster. Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links. See our Affiliate Disclosure.
If you moved a bit faster and planned your route carefully, you could do it slightly quicker. So, while I’d suggest three days as the perfect amount of time to spend in Kanazawa, you could do it in two days and one night, if you have to.
When You Might Spend Less Time
The main draw of Kanazawa is wandering the winding streets of the old geisha and samurai districts, visiting the numerous museums, shopping, and visiting some shrines.
If you’re not a wanderer, if you don’t shop, if you have no interest in eating gold leaf ice cream or making a box with gold cats on and you want all your sights, Instagram worthy, you could probably get away with one day in Kanazawa to see the Ninja Temple, Higashi Chaya, Omicho Market and maybe the art museum and be done with things.
Our guide to Kanazawa in One Day can help you plan your day if you do decide to do this.
When You Might Want More Time
1. You Enjoy a Potter
Kanazawa’s three main sightseeing districts – Higashi Chaya, Nagamachi and Nishi Chaya – were made for pottering. They’re full of small alleyways, tiny shrines, and lots of shops, cafes, small museums, old houses, and endless emporiums filled with gold leaf.
If you’re the type of person who enjoys wandering round each corner, poking your head in each shop, chatting to store owners, stopping for coffee or a sweet treat, etc, well, you might never get away!
There are also three gardens in Kanazawa that could easily take up most of a day to visit.
If you’re a potterer and want to take in Kanazawa’s sights at a more leisurely pace, allow three days, two nights.
2. You Enjoy Crafts
The Maeda family, which ruled Kanazawa for many years, was renowned for its love of the arts. Alongside the many samurai they brought to the area, they also welcomed artisans. This tradition means that today, the region is a craft lover’s paradise.
Not only can you walk around many shops filled with the brightly painted pottery, gold leaf products and an intricate type of knotting called mizuhiki that the city is known for, you can also try your own hand at making many of these in workshops around the city.
Take a look at our longer guide to craft experiences in Kanazawa to see the top five you might want to check out. If you want to try a few of these and see the main sights, I would say you need three days in Kanazawa.
3. You Want to Go to Shirakawa-go
The reason I didn’t arrive in Kanazawa until lunchtime was that I stopped off at the village of Shirakawa-go on the way from Takayama, my previous stop.
Visiting Shirakawa-go as a stop-off is the most time-effective way to see it, but if you’re not visiting Takayama, it’s very simple to visit Shirakawa-go for the day from Kanazawa.
However, you will need to add another day to your stay to fit it in.
Oh, and make sure you read this post before you go. It’s all the things I wish I’d known before I went.
Visiting Shirakawa-go is easily done via the Nohi bus service (make bookings in advance here), or you can find plenty of tours that will take you to Shirakawa-go and the less-visited Gassho village of Gokayama from Kanazawa. Take a look at Shirakawa-go tours here.
4. You Want to Visit the Snow Walls
The normal jumping off point for these would be Toyama, as it’s slightly nearer, but if you don’t have enough time in your plans to head there, you can book tours of this imposing natural sight directly from Kanazawa.
Find the tour here – it only runs when the Snow Walls are open, which is usually mid-April to mid-June
It’s a long day, though, so if you want to combine this with seeing all the sights of Kanazawa, you’re going to need three days here.
Need Extra Planning Help?
Our Japan trip planners can help. You might like our First-Timers Japan Planner, which will help you plan your trip to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka step-by-step, including tips on everything from picking hotels to sightseeing and dining. Or our super-duper Tokyo Disney Planner makes arranging your park trip MUCH easier. Find them in our Planners store – printable and digital versions are available.
So, that’s my quick guide to how long I think you need to spend to do Kanazawa justice – as tempting as it is to rush through everything in Japan, sometimes it’s nice to spend a little longer in a place, and I’m very glad I gave myself the extra day in Kanazawa.
Who Writes This Blog?
My name is Helen Foster, and I’m a journalist and author. My travel articles have appeared in publications including The Australian, Escape, RAC Horizons, Jetstar Magazine, Sainsbury’s Magazine, and more.
I’ve traveled to Japan eight times before – solo and with my partner and visited over 25 towns and cities. My last visit was November 2024 so, everything here is pretty up to date.
